Madison County Fire Department, TN, USA

Madison County had a single-site conventional analog repeater and a single 300-foot tower to cover the entire county. Matthew Gay, the Maintenance Manager for Madison County, describes the situation. "With a single site and no redundancy, any kind of problem that we had could bring down our network. We had several lightning hits in a row on that site and ran into trouble with water as well. It was stressful to me knowing that if somebody called me and said the network isn't working, we wouldn't know what to do; there was no redundancy."

Coverage was also a problem. "We had to look for places that we could talk on a portable." In order to increase safety and performance, and reduce stress, Madison County needed to upgrade their communication system. They wanted a system that would allow them to continue talking, even if they lost a tower. Future-proofing and making the best use of taxpayer money was also a prime consideration: they wanted something they could expand in the future.

Not only does Madison County have a fully upgradeable system with greater reliability, but the coverage has also shown dramatic improvement. Matthew Gay explains. "Before you had to look for places where you could talk on a portable. Now I'm trying to look for places where I can't, and I haven't found any yet.

"I've intentionally sent people to places where I knew the (old) system could not work. These areas had terrible coverage even with mobiles on our old system, so there's no way we would have had portable coverage. But since I wanted to see, I'd send people there and they'd talk on their portables and it's crystal clear. That's pretty amazing."

Madison has no regrets about their system, and if they had to do it over again, they'd buy the exact same thing, Matthew Gay says. "We wouldn't change anything. We believe we got the absolute best system we could get, and it was inexpensive. I don't mean we got the best system for the money we had; I mean we got the best that we could get. And it was inexpensive."

Chief Turner sums up. "We're pleased with our coverage. We're pleased with the service we're getting and the installation of the system was flawless. Overall, we're very pleased."